Dances with Darwin, 1875-1910: Vernacular Modernity in France

Cover
Half Title
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction: An anthropology of gesture: the place and gesture of movement in evolution theory; The impact of evolution theory and psychopathology on spectators; Ethnological spectacle and hybrid performance style
1 The Epileptic Singers
	Dangerous Dances
	Contagion
	A New Genre of Entertainer
	Sex, Vulgarity, and Disease
	Just For a Laugh
	Polaire
	The Cancan
	The Last Laugh
2 Darwinism and Degeneration Theory in Popular Culture
	Making Order out of Difference
	The Year 1878
	Phenomena: from Hybrids to Hottentots
	What the Spectator Really Wants to See
	Doubtful Species: The Anthropoid in Our Past and Physical Anthropology in France
	Degeneration, Anthropological and Medical
	Monkey Business
	Trouble-Makers
3 What Is Ugly?
	Part I: Scientific and Evolutionist Aesthetics
	The Wild Men of Paris
	Movement and Creativity
	The Body: Sex, Pain, and the Ugly
	Part II: The Making of a New Café-Concert Aesthetic
	The Ugliness Prize
	The Grimace
	The Voracious Mouth: Animals and Cannibals
	The First Laugh
4 Natural Rhythm: Africans and Black Americans in Paris
	The Music-Hall Helps the Cause of Colonialism
	Before the Cake-Walk
	The Black Menace
	Chocolat and Chocolates
	Retribution
	The Minstrels
	Cake-Walking Babies from Back Home
	Trading Places
	Chocolat Redux: An American in Paris
5 Epileptic Singers and the Mysteries of the Dark Continent
	Fashion and the White Savage
	The Nude and the Naked
	The Blond and the Black Venus
	Polaire
	The Ugliest Woman in the World
	Hybridity
6 Darwin Meets Père Ubu
	Jarry, Natural Historian
	Ubu Cocu
	The Ignoble Double
	Bergson’s Lesson
Epilogue: Darwin’s Avant-Garde: Ubu’s Progeny
	Dancing the Primitive
	Josephine Baker and the Danse Sauvage
Bibliography
Index